Changing tone capacitors in a guitar?

[velorush]

17 hours ago, Cboss said:

https://www.vintageinspiredpickups.com/vipots

These are amazing; I have a stash of centralab pots from 1949 and these sound about 85 percent as great, and they are not expensive 

Really popular on the Les Paul forum

17 hours ago, BoogieMKIIA said:

Have you compared these to the RS pots?  I really like the taper, these look similar. Vintage inspired seems to use the same taper for volume and tone. Some other places recommend a standard taper.  Hmm, did Gibson spec different pots for volume and tone?

I have RS SuperPots in my Howard Roberts. They replaced the stock (300k) Gibson pots - amazing transition. Taper works as advertised. Caveat: not apples to apples as, at the same time I replaced the 490T/R set with Lollar Imperials. For around $550 it turned a meh semi-jazz guitar it into a really great sounding versatile instrument. 

[BoogieMKIIA]

This thread has helped me better understand my Studio Custom and how to approach it. Seems a bit bright but not related to wood.  This is due to the tone cap value and pots (all stock Hamer on mine). Just adjust your amp or turn down the tone control to taste. Has been stated plenty of times, now it makes more sense as to why. 

 

[Jim85IROC]

I'm going to go against the grain here and try to provide some more technical information.

BLUF: Capacitors matter way less than you think.

Details:  The tone circuit in a guitar is an RC network (Resistor & Capacitor), and for approximately the first half of the sweep of the tone knob, the "R" value is so large that it is by far the dominant factor in the high frequency rolloff.  It's not until you get to about 1/2 way or more into the rolloff of the knob that the capacitor has virtually any influence.  From that point on, the capacitor's value will impact the frequency response, with a larger capacitor impacting the rolloff frequency.

 

Some heavier reading here:

https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/7166/effect-tone-capacitors

 

As for capacitor type impacting sound, absolutely not.  None. At all.  Golden ears can sniff all the corks they want, but there's no measurable evidence in the history of anything audio related to support that.  There is, however, a substantial amount of measured and repeatable data to prove otherwise.  2 caps of the same value will provide exactly the same rolloff, with absolutely no change to the sinewave at any of the audible frequencies.